Farash Foundation awards grants to arts organizations

The Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation is giving $100,000 each to five Rochester-area arts organizations for projects encouraging partnerships and creating a community impact.

The foundation made a request for proposals called Cultural Creative Collision. In the world of art entrepreneurship, creative collision refers to the innovation that results when perspectives, talents and abilities come together, foundation officials noted.

• Rochester Oratorio Society for the Interactive Classical Visions Project by Sound ExChange, an experimental music lab that originated in the Eastman School of Music.

• Baobab Cultural Center for a project bringing together seven organizations, four artists and Rochester Institute of Technology’s office for diversity and inclusion. The project is to involve visual, folk, music and performance artists who will study and create African masks that convey the meaning and rituals represented in the African Diaspora.

• Garth Fagan Dance Co. for a project that includes the YMCA of Greater Rochester, the Rochester Police Department and conductor Arild Remmereit. The project will provide 30 at-risk teens with an intensive introduction to dance, culminating with a series of free public performances.

• Friends of Gonandagan for a project interpreting the ancient Iroquois Creation Story of Haudenosaunee people.

“True to form, our local arts organizations have been extraordinarily creative in finding a variety of collaborators to achieve their artistic ends,” said Theresa Mazzullo, foundation trustee and chairman of the grants committee. “The winning proposals will create great partnerships and wonderfully original projects.”